Liquid metal as cooling solution, an accident waiting to happen.
I do understand why manufacturers use liquid metal instead of MX-6 or another traditional thermal paste as a cooling solution.
The thermal performance is amazing.
Usually a machine runs a few degrees cooler compared to its non-liquid-metal counterpart. That means longer boost clocks, less fan noise and better benchmark scores.
But if you would ask me honestly?
In my humble opinion, using liquid metal inside a laptop, or honestly even inside a normal desktop computer, is borderline insane.
In a normal desktop computer you at least have options.
You can install a larger cooler, add more heatpipes, improve airflow, install bigger case fans or simply accept temperatures that are a few degrees higher.
There is usually no real need to introduce electrically conductive liquid metal into the equation.
And a laptop?
Well.
Liquid metal is electrically conductive.
Yes, no shit Sherlock.
The problem is that manufacturers are putting electrically conductive liquid metal into devices that usually experience at least some form of abuse during their lifetime:
- Moved around constantly
- Multiple heat cycles every single day
- Shoved, gently and not so gently, into backpacks
- Flexed
- Bumped
Not to mention that users periodically want to open up the backside of their laptop for maintenance.
If the containment barrier, or “dam”, around the CPU or GPU ever fails, there is a very real chance that liquid metal escapes onto the motherboard.
And in that case it is almost instantly: short circuit, dead motherboard, game over.
So hey, great that your laptop runs 2 degrees cooler.
But when, and not if, the liquid metal eventually escapes:
Congratulations, your motherboard is now modern art.
Serviceability
Luckily my laptop did not come with liquid metal.
And serviceability in some cases makes the whole situation even worse.
For example: inside my Lenovo Legion 5 I cannot remove both cooling fans without removing the entire heatsink and heatpipe assembly.
Which means:
- hello CPU,
- hello GPU,
- hello thermal compound.
With liquid metal in place, servicing a laptop suddenly becomes a much bigger and riskier operation unless the manufacturer specifically designs the machine around it properly.
In my opinion, if a laptop uses liquid metal, the fans should absolutely be serviceable from the top side without disturbing the cooling assembly at all.
And the irony is that modern thermal compounds keep getting better and better, making the choice for liquid metal feel even more questionable.
At some point reliability and durability matter more than squeezing out the last 2 or 3 degrees Celsius.
Especially in a device specifically designed to be moved around in the first place.
My Legion laptop is still going strong and I do not feel the need to replace it anytime soon.
But rest assured:
the choice of cooling compound is now officially on my shortlist when buying my next laptop.
Brain, thermally concerned, out.